Music is the Pied Piper of marketing to millennials, and it's hard to think of a brand these days that isn't courting youths with the promise of sweet beats, live entertainment and other forms of melodic wooing in the hopes of spurring buzz, engagement—with a side order of loyalty, growth and revenue.

Cue PTTOW!, an invite-only network of CEOs, CMOs and cultural leaders whose companies and brands represent $68 billion in annual media spending. As a group sharing best practices and inspiration, it's hoping to transform music-marketing collaborations as new technologies and social platforms change consumer behavior.

PTTOW! launched almost eight years ago, with the goal of being a "business accelerator for larger companies" that engage directly with the next generation of consumers (ages 14-34), Forbesnotes. The unusual monkier comes straight out of a teenager's bedroom, where PTTOW! is comic book lingo for a punch in the face, and more formally stands for Plan To Take On the World.

After seven years of hosting major annual events and a handful of smaller events, PTTOW! has booked its biggest gig to date: PTTOW! Music, a series of members-only events and think tank sessions culminating in the organization's first music summit on February 4 in Los Angeles—better known in the industry as Grammy Awards week.Continue reading...

Australian surf company Billabong has arguably been the king of big waves for 40 years, but the last couple have been a rough ride for the struggling company. After tripling its losses to $772 million in the fiscal year ending in June, the company on Tuesday essentially declared itself worthless.

Just a year earlier, the declared value of the brand rested at $224 million—still a far cry from its peak in 2007 when it was valued at $3.45 billion, according to Bloomberg.

According to the New York Times, Billabong has several refinancing options on its plate, however its unknown how the new brand value will affect those proceedings. For now, it has delayed the start of Billabong's new CEO, Scott Olivet, who used to head Oakley.Continue reading...

America has spent more time working or looking for jobs in recent years and it’s put the hurt on some recreational activities. That’s been quite a blow, apparently, to Quiksilver, the brand that’s long been synonymous with surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding.

Andy Mooney, who took over as CEO in January after running the show at Disney Consumer products and spending two decades at Nike, got to share the bad news with the world Thursday as the company reported not-so-great quarterly earnings. Overall revenues for the first quarter, which ended January 31, were down 3 percent to $431 million from $450 million the previous year. American net revenues dropped 9 percent in the quarter to $186 million, down from $205 million. The only major plus for the quarter was that e-commerce sales had gone up 39 percent to $33 million. Continue reading...

With 1.3 billion residents, China is the place every marketer hopes to conquer. Even if a product can get a percentage of that market, they are golden.

Last week we noted how Chinese surfing brands were taking market share from their neighboring action sports brands in Australia. Now, Western brands are chilled to hang ten in China. The mainland isn’t exactly known as a surfing hotbed (yet), but that isn’t stopping the International Surfing Association from trying to rope in some dollars from China.

This past weekend marked the start of the four-day China Cup sponsored by the ISA and Womei Media along with Quiksilver, according to the festival’s website. The idea of the Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival, which features back-to-back surf contests, a food festival, and live music, is to “blend surfing with elements of Chinese culture,” according to the site.Continue reading...

Made in China surfboards are taking market share from Australia's surfboard brands, according to Bloomberg. Blame undercutting on price by the Chinese manufacturers, along with rising production costs for the Aussies, who are also being slammed by "a strong currency that’s making their products less competitive overseas."

The dilemma, as Bloomberg puts it:

From Bells Beach to Brisbane, Australia’s board builders are facing a choice: close down, or try to preserve local designs and branding by applying them to products made abroad. “We have to adapt,” said Michelle Blauw, co-owner of Currumbin, Queensland-based D’Arcy Surfboards and president of the Australian Surf Craft Industry Association. “You can’t always point the finger and blame everybody else for the situation that you’re in.”

Another solution, beyond local branding and craftsmanship, is to better utilize digital marketing to more deeply engage with surf, board and action sports fans. Case in point: the D'Arcy Surfboards website offers a Japanese version, in addition to riding the social wave with a Facebook page and store, blog, on Google+ and on Twitter.

The Australian Surf Craft industry is also promoting "Made in Australia" labels to battle the cheaper imports and appeal to homegrown pride:Continue reading...